Thoughts on the underlying plot so far: (obviously spoils everywhere) Judging from one of the earliest possible moments I can remember in the story, that green-haired kid (i suck at names) had a conversation with Azai that touched no the topic of "Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde" a little. Further into the story (however far I may be), headaches appear to be a common plotpoint throughout. So far i've only come to two conclusions:

1. Azai is Maou, but obviously only subconciously, and possibly brought about from his deep suppressed emotional issues as touched upon by his therapist. Although, this seems like such an obvious answer, as if the writers are almost daring you to take this method of thinking in order to lead you on.
2. Azai has a long lost brother, who is Maou.

I'm not really certain, and i'm more trying to figure out what the writer was thinking when writing the story, rather than about the actual characters at the moment. Although in order to do that I need to actually think about every little detail of the story, so I guess I am paying attention to the characters. lmao i don't know; i'm just reading along.

I just remembered why I stopped reading books. Once I pick up one that interests me in the slightest I won't stop until i'm finished or pass out.

Thoughts on the underlying plot so far: (obviously spoils everywhere) Judging from one of the earliest possible moments I can remember in the story, that green-haired kid (i suck at names) had a conversation with Azai that touched no the topic of "Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde" a little. Further into the story (however far I may be), headaches appear to be a common plotpoint throughout. So far i've only come to two conclusions:

1. Azai is Maou, but obviously only subconciously, and possibly brought about from his deep suppressed emotional issues as touched upon by his therapist. Although, this seems like such an obvious answer, as if the writers are almost daring you to take this method of thinking in order to lead you on.
2. Azai has a long lost brother, who is Maou.

I'm not really certain, and i'm more trying to figure out what the writer was thinking when writing the story, rather than about the actual characters at the moment. Although in order to do that I need to actually think about every little detail of the story, so I guess I am paying attention to the characters. lmao i don't know; i'm just reading along.

I just remembered why I stopped reading books. Once I pick up one that interests me in the slightest I won't stop until i'm finished or pass out.

edit: finally finished the chapter. haha

Which character are you going for first? I recommend doing Haru's last. It's the most dramatic and adrenaline-inducing. At least for me it was.

I wonder if you could pin games like Mass Effect and Dragon age under the Visual Novel flag.

Using a loose definition though. Considering VNs have Graphics, are story-oriented, have character decisions that affect the plot, sometimes with gameplay/rpg features.

Extremely loose definition. You usually don't do anything else but read with novels. VN adds the visual side to it; pictures and sounds. Nothing else, even the choices are present in books. ME and DA adds what, everything else that defines a video-game? I find it extremely hard to call either of them a visual novel.

I wonder if you could pin games like Mass Effect and Dragon age under the Visual Novel flag.

Using a loose definition though. Considering VNs have Graphics, are story-oriented, have character decisions that affect the plot, sometimes with gameplay/rpg features.

The distinguishing difference is the abysmally lower level of player interaction in VN's compared to other games. One could say that what makes visual novels non-games is the lack of gameplay. If you'd rate Mass Effect as a game reviewer you'd go through categories like for example "Visuals", "Story" and "Gameplay", but you couldn't do that with VN's since there is no "gameplay" to speak of other than clicking a button to proceed.

The distinguishing difference is the abysmally lower level of player interaction in VN's compared to other games. One could say that what makes visual novels non-games is the lack of gameplay. If you'd rate Mass Effect as a game reviewer you'd go through categories like for example "Visuals", "Story" and "Gameplay", but you couldn't do that with VN's since there is no "gameplay" to speak of other than clicking a button to proceed.

I'd agree with you, but I don't like comparing things like that. I think, after some thinking, I could bring examples from both VNs and Video Games that you'd consider low and high player interaction.

I'd still consider Phoenix Wright more of a game. I mean, you got to actually solve how everything happened in the case based on the witness reports and evidence, you've got to prove shit in court and call witnesses on their false testimony based on the evidence etc.

Yeah, I understand it basically is a linear visual novel story wise, but I feel like there is enough interactivity and thought you have to put in by the player to make it more of a game than a VN. You got to solve the case if you want to finish the story. In a regular VN you just make choices and read a long most of the time.

Also the first game is on the app store for pretty cheap ($4.99) if you don't have a DS, and the two sequels released after it are coming to the app store as well. It's one of my favorite DS series and I recommend everyone to at least check it out.

Naturally a game doesn't have to fit into just one category. You could have a game that's a mix of both and you could say it's either a Visual Novel with of mini-games to relieve the narrative flow from time to time, or you could call it an FPS/RTS/RPG/whatever-game with lots of pure narrative sections stuck in between the gameplay sections. Whatever you'd like to call such a game would be up to the developers, depending on things like what target audience they aim to deliver the game to.